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Day: September 15, 2012

One of my favorite books is Winston Churchill’s “The River War,” about the Anglo-Egyptian campaign in Sudan in the 1890s. Among its many memorable passages is Churchill’s meditation the nature of Islam. Recent events make me think it’s worth dusting off:

How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property—either as a child, a wife, or a concubine—must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen: all know how to die. But the influence of the religion paralyzes the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proseltyzing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science—the science against which it had vainly struggled—the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome.

Some on reading that will scream “racism” (1) and “Islamophobia.” Whatever. Looking over the events of not just the past few days, but the last 20 years, I can’t help but wonder if instead the future prime minister wasn’t sharp-eyed and wise.

Updated at 10 a.m. ET: A man purported to be a filmmaker involved with the anti-Islam video sparking violent unrest in the Middle East and North Africa was escorted by deputies from his Cerritos, Calif., home shortly after midnight Saturday morning, NBCLosAngeles.com reported.

Media and law enforcement had been staking out the home at the end of a cul de sac in the Southern California city for about 48 hours when Nakoula Besseley Nakoula emerged wearing a coat, hat, scarf and glasses.

L.A. County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Steve Whitmore confirmed to NBCLA that Nakoula, 55, was taken to the Cerritos sheriff’s station for interviewing by federal probation officers aimed at determining whether he violated the terms of his 5-year probation by uploading a video to the Internet.

“We are in an assist mode,” he said.

Whitmore added that Nakoula, who has denied involvement in the film in a phone call to his Coptic Christian bishop, agreed to the interview prior to the deputies arriving at his home, that the move was “entirely voluntary” and the man was “very cooperative.”

In “assist mode”? To who?

Look, we all know what’s going on here but it’s being done under the pretense of the “filmmaker” being “suspected of violating his probation.” Do not be fooled. This ‘film” was released months ago but he is only now being taken in for questioning why exactly? Because radical Islam is literally setting the world on fire, and the feds want to put on a dog and pony show to indicate to the Muslim world that they are “doing something” about this filmmaker who so offended the sensitivities of fundamentalist thugs who hate Western values.

Let me also say this: Nakoula doesn’t sound like a paragon of virtue, but he was expressing his First Amendment rights to an opinion some people don’t agree with. Does he deserve the treatment he is receiving by the press, other critics, the feds, and the Obama administration?

What else should send your temperature rising today? Read the article I linked above. We now know more, courtesy of the MSM, about the history of this “filmmaker” than we do the history of our own President. This is insane, and it’s not just the feds who should be called to account over the “questioning” of a man for engaging in his right to free speech, not just the politicos and administration officials who are blaming this man for Islamofascist rage in the Middle East (and who have shut down questioning by the press on the Benghazi murders), but also the mainstream media who give more of a d*mn about an obscure filmmaker’s life story than they did about the Democrat nominee for President Barack Obama in 2008.

I went on quite a rant this morning about this on Twitter. Relevant tweets are below:

Western values are under literal attack in the ME by Islam, & here in US another way by libs who don’t believe in American exceptionalism.